by nuno75 » 16th May 07, 00:29
The Wildhearts in the order of my preference:
1 - Earth Vs. The Wildhearts
This, for me, is a no-brainer. It's a roller coaster from start to finish without a single dull spot anywhere on it.
2 - Fishing For Luckies (All Versions Combined)
This one has some songs that are stronger, in my opinion, than any single song on Earth Vs., but some of the in-between songs kind of drag the album down as a whole for me. Moodswings & Roundabouts, Soul Searching On The Planet Earth, In Like Flynn, Nite Songs... to me these are very weak tracks that it's not unheard of for me to skip past.
3 - PHUQ
I Wanna Go Where The People Go is my all-time favorite song... by anyone. Nita Nitro is maybe my third or fourth favorite... but like Luckies, this album drags here and there. Naivety Play does nothing for me. Same with Woah Shit and Cold Patootie... and Be My Drug started out strong but quickly sank to nearly the bottom of my list.
4 - Endless Nameless
When I first got this it instantly became my least favorite WH album. After several years of having the tracks pop up during random play on the whole discography, though, I began to hear the music under the noise and for a while it was all I would listen to. Some really, really, really great songs here... but as I got more and more used to it, the weaker tracks started to jump out at me. Junkenstein is a nothing-track for me. I almost always skip it. Why You Lie, Soundog Babylon and Now Is The Colour are very weak for me too... but the rest is pure magic.
5 - The Wildhearts
Destroy All Monsters could have been on PHUQ. I love, love, love that song. Unfortunately Rooting For The Bad Guy and The Sweetest Song are both almost totally lost to me because of the verses which are entirely too over the top with the screaming, and the choruses which are too bubblegum happy. Way too much of both worlds. From there we get into Revolution and Flesh, which are both good songs... but very poppy. Slaughtered Authors is excellent though... and then Inner-City and The Hard way are both very poppy too.... good, but poppy. Then Bi-Polar and She's All That are poppy and not-so-good. So in short, Two really great songs, four good songs, and four so-so songs. (By Wildhearts standards, though... the worst track on the worst Wildhearts album is still better than most of what you'd hear on the radio)
6 - The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed/Coupled With
Lots of great, short poppy numbers here. Vanilla Radio... of course. Stormy... of course. Only Love? Someone That Won't Let Me Go? Only One Hell? What's with all the happiness? Where is the sarcastic hostility? I mean they're all good songs, just not for The Wildhearts. Everything is overproduced... every guitar is actually twelve guitars, every vocal sounds like about nineteen people. Some songs, I swear I can't hear Ginger's voice anywhere in the crowd... it's like some weird robotic 150 voice choir-machine or something. Less Than Zero is the worst culprit for that... even though it's one of my favorite tracks from this era. I don't know... I guess this whole generation of songs sounds, to me, like too many songs spawned from not enough ideas.
7. Don't Be Happy... Just Worry!
This was their dry-run album. Obviously the guys hadn't quite grown into their skin yet. Perfectly excusable... but still, not an album I get much enjoyment out of at all.
Mostly, though, I just random play the whole dicography, and am usually quite pleased with anything that might pop up.
